So the first weekend of the 2008 holiday season is almost gone.How's it going?

Actually, not too badly - thanks for asking.

Perhaps confession is good for the soul. Admitting my long standing antipathy toward the holidays in my last post was cathartic, as in "there I've said it...my name is Becca and I hate Christmas."

So I marshaled my emotional resources, pulled my self together and (so far) made it through the weekend with a minimum of angst.

Whew.

I've accomplished a few things, which always makes me feel better. Things like getting a head start on my next big project for work and assembling all the photos for the annual Magic and Molly calendar we give as gifts to all the members of the Magic and Molly fan club ~ don't laugh, they have quite a legion of admirers here in the neighborhood.

We made some decisions about our travel plans for the holidays, something we'd been dithering about for the past month. We usually drive to Florida for an extended holiday, taking the pups with us. This year, with our kids away in Thailand for the holidays, we found ourselves vacillating about the trip. When our friends invited us to join them at their timeshare in Las Vegas early in January, we decided to use our vacation days that way.

I tried not to overeat, which isn't all that difficult because I really don't like turkey all that much(another confession!) My mother's homemade carrot cake presents a different story altogether, and I have been indulging my sweet tooth unmercifully.

I watched a movie last night (Sex and the City- adored it!) and a fabulous documentary about an insider's tour of the White House on the history channel tonight.

And then, I put up my Christmas decorations. It's my tradition to "dress the house" on Thanksgiving weekend, a tradition that stems from long years of December weekends filled to the brim with concerts, leaving no time for decorating. Although I have nothing on my personal musical calendar this year (a totally amazing occurrence) I decided to continue the tradition. It felt good to get out the tree and the mantel decorations, the garlands and angel collection, and sit reading in the warm glow of all the little white lights.

So I've made a pretty good start to the holidays. As I wrote on my Facebook page..."Becca is cautiously optimistic." About lots of things :)

How about you? How's your holiday weekend going so far?

And for all the members of the Magic and Molly fan club - here's a sneak preview of the calendar pics for 2009!

Since I first learned how to tap the keys on an old Remington manual typewriter, I’ve loved to write. It’s how I make sense of life in general and my own in particular. It’s how I understand myself and the world around me. “The good writer,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the universe which runs through himself and all things.” As I write about my own life and share my own stories, I hope you recognize that thread of similarity running between my universe and yours.